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Saturday, 29 March 2014

Today I am going to be reviewing one of my staple skincare items. I never realised how good this product actually was until I ran out of cotton pads and had to have a couple of days without it. Believe me, 2 days later my skin was terrible.

For a while I wondered what an earth toner would do for me because I just believed that I wash well enough to already remove all of my makeup, but I was very wrong. There were still little grimey bits that I was in fact missing whilst cleansing, so this toner is perfect for it.

Another great thing about this is that it is 100% alcohol free and is kind to sensitive skin, and as I am suffering from pretty bad eczema at the moment, so it's gentleness is perfect for me and for £2.99 it is an absolute bargain.

I highly recommend this for anyone who is buying their first toner, it is gentle and cleaning, but you aren't spending a fortune in case your skin is like "NO!".

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Spring has been officially with us for a week now, although I know that is slightly debatable considering the weather has been all over the place where I live. I've seen this tag wondering around the internet for the past week and thought that I would do it even though I hadn't been tagged *hehehe... so mischievous*. Anyway, here we go...

What are some spring trends you're looking forward to the most?

Both pastels and florals. I'm loving all of the pastel gingham skorts that are coming out at the moment, but I am also loving the fact that floral crowns are very much in at the moment.

Often my family and I will go to the countryside and stay in a nice apartment for the weekend, have a pub lunch and going on nice walks.

Is it warm or cold during spring where you live?

That is impossible to answer because last year it snowed during spring time, but the year before we had a terrible draught, which lead to a hosepipe ban. Although a few days after the ban came to course it didn't stop raining and everyone's water butts where full to the brim within 2 days. Yep, England weather is pretty unpredictable. For example, last week it was 20'c and this week we have only been reaching highs of 9'c.

What's you favourite spring lip colour?

I like a nice fuchsia pink, because spring is all about flowers blooming, thus a nice floral colour has to be a staple spring colour.

Favourite spring nail polish colour?

I have always loved to wear Barry M's nail polish in the colour mint green during the spring months. It looks so cute, but I would really like to buy Essie's nail polish in Mint Candy Apple.

Favourite Spring Colour?

That is an unfair question because it is almost impossible for me to choose with such gorgeous pastel colours in during spring.

Favourite Starbucks drink during spring?

Hmmm... I'm really not sure because I don't have a starbucks near me, but if they have a mango smoothie to offer then I would certainly choose that.

Do you add colour to your makeup for spring?

I love having a little pop of colour under my lower lash line for spring. A baby blue or a mint green always look the nicest on me because I have hazel coloured eyes.

What are you most excited about for spring 2014?

For me spring is going to be mostly consisting of revising for my exams, but I am looking forward to the little things. Seeing daffodils in my neighbours gardens, seeing cherry blossom blooming on the trees and seeing little lambs bouncing through the fields.

I am going to tag Kelly to do this post, as I would love to see her answers to this tag, but if you fancy giving this tag a go then please do comment below if you do.

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

I have absolutely no idea when everyone has their picture day, because every school does things differently, but I thought that I could do a post sharing a few of my tips because I had mine only a couple of weeks ago. This post isn't just for picture day of course, these tip will also be perfect for prom, or any other occasion when flash photography might be involved.

Don't try anything too experimental with your hair and makeup on the morning of you picture. Trying a cat-eye flick on the morning of your picture and it all going wrong will stress you out. If you want to try something new, practice before the day.

Teethy smiles please. Don't be shy about showing some teeth in your photos. Smiles that show a little bit of teeth look much more genuine and natural than a closed mouth grimace, which is clearly forced because nobody naturally smiles like that.

Keep you hair our of your eyes, it looks odd in the picture, eyes should be the focal point of the picture.

Now for some makeup tips...

Keep it natural, vampy lips and dark smokey eyes really do not look fit for a school picture, leave that look for a glamorous night out.

Use an SPF free foundation. This is especially important for us pale girls, because SPF creates flashback, causing you to look even more white and washed out.

Powder up... A matte face will also help avoid any awkward flashback. Also, avoid any shimmer, it really doesn't look the best in school pictures.

Keep your cheeks light. The camera picks up colour better than you think, and an unnatural blush is really not the look you want to go for.

Carry a mirror with you. You will so annoyed if the photo that is framed on the majority of your families wall, is you with lipstick on your teeth or an eyelash on your cheek.

Saturday, 22 March 2014

On May 12th last year I made this little space on the internet. I made it for me to channel my thoughts on all things beauty, life and fashion related. I wanted this place because I felt like nobody I actually knew would really be interested. But, after telling my friends I have had more support and interest than I ever imagined possible. Most of my friends have been so lovely about my blog and that makes me feel so happy.

But, it's not just that, that makes me happy any more, it is also you guys. On Thursday night last I hit 100 followers on bloglovin. I would be lying if I wasn't to say I was proud of my blog that night. Never in my wildest imagination did I think that I'd manage to write 150 posts, but I certainly didn't think I'd get over 100 people following my blog.

Not only can I feel happy that I have support from friends on this blog, but I can also feel happy that I have support from you guys. And, I guess that makes us friends too, right?

I will continue to keep my blog up for as long as possible because I enjoy writing it so much, and talking to people through it is an amazing feeling, and I cannot wait to see what EmilyBelleBlogs will grow into one day. I know 100 followers isn't tonnes to some, but it's tonnes to me. My little blog is continuing to grow, and I'm hoping that you guys can carry on following it on it's little journey with me.

Thank you all so much!! Okay, I'm going to stop now before it gets too sappy.

Thursday, 20 March 2014

Some of you may know that I am an Explorer scout, which means that as well as being a super girly girl I am also willing to take the makeup off and be a bit more adventurous. In fact, sometimes I think that without scouts I would be the worlds biggest whimp and also a fairly boring person.

Aren't these lanterns cute?

The fire I made for the rest of the camp.

A view of some of the campsite.

A cute kettle on a groovy oven thingymabob.

The hammock we made using our awesome pioneering skills. We slept in it.

Last weekend I went on a survival camp with my Explorers, and I will have to admit, I wasn't sure whether I'd enjoy it to start with, but I in fact had an awesome weekend. Also, because I did go, it means I will live with no regrets now.

The weekend started with us making camp. Which included digging a hole for our fire, making our hammock to sleep in with some special scouting knots and creating shelter around our camp to keep the wind out and give us more privacy. Our little camp area was so cute and lovely, and had the perfect social atmosphere.

After eating lunch, which for me consisted of a rather large pack of popcorn, I helped make the fire for us to cook our dinner on later.

We then spent a while chilling in our hammock, chatting and just relaxing. After a few hours of this we had dinner which was jacket potatoes and bolognase made on the open fire and raspberry crumble made in the special oven thingys.

Afterwards we played wide games on the field and then sat around the campfire with a guitar until late.

The next morning I helped make the fry up over the open fire for the rest of the group and we spent the rest of the day making rope swings and zip wires with rope, whilst burning the rest of the wood and card on the fire.

After breaking camp and having our lunch we were all tired, but had such a great, relaxing but memorable camp. The weather was glorious and I have no regrets about going on camp at all.

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Hello Everybody,It is another #2014bloggerchallenge post today, and to be perfectly honest I didn't really know what to write for this post because the topic is about food. I love cooking, and baking, but I already do my EmBakes series, so clearly I wanted this to be different. So I have decided that I am just going to give you a list of my favourite foods.

My first favourite food is Chilli Heatwave Doritos, but I have given up crisps up for lent, thus I am missing these greatly. I have loved these for as long as I remember and I am not totally sure why.

Saturday, 15 March 2014

Today I thought I would share with you 25 really random facts about me, so you can get to know me better, because I feel that sometimes people just see bloggers as, well, bloggers, I guess. When we are all people and have our own personalities and stories to tell.

I find trees really fascinating, but I'm not really sure why. I guess it's because they are all unique and look quite pretty.

When I was younger I used to have a rather fond interest in Birds of Prey, and particularly the Barn Owl. My dad even took me night bird watching once at our local Bird Centre.

I love cherry blossom trees, purely because they are pink. Oops! That was another tree fact.

I really love the outdoors, and once I walked out of my friends house purely because I was sick of sitting indoors. Not a great thing to do to your friends and I will never live that moment down, but I do like a bit of air every now and again.

I really don't like thunder and lightening, and never have done. When I was really young lightening struck the house opposite to me and the house caught on fire. It also broke our computer, but one of those old box ones.

I used to suck my thumb up until about the age of ten. Then I needed quite a lot of dental work because of the habit and stopped.

I bruise like a peach, literally, I have no idea where half of my bruises come from.

I am seriously clumsy, for example I fell down from the top of my stairs all the way to the bottom twice in the space of two weeks earlier this year., yet I have never broken a bone because I bounce (I'm pretty sure of it).

I love musicals, and I think Grease has got to be my favourite.

I am 5"8 and a half inches tall, which makes me the tallest out of all of my friends, but the smallest out of my family. Both of my parents are 5"11 and my brother is 6".

I have a twin brother and I am 1 minute older than him, although I don't think he likes me reminding people of that.

The most stupid question my brother and I get asked is, "Are you identical?". Firstly, we don't even look like each other, and secondly, he is a boy and I am a girl, which means we cannot be identical.

I love cupcakes, I even have a cupcake money jar and a cupcake door stop.

I also really love doughnuts, jam and sugar, icing and sprinkles, krispy kreme, you name it, I love it.

I have never read the hunger games, or seen the movies, and still do not intend to, they simply do not appeal to me.

My favourite place in England has got to be Morecambe Bay, something about the place is so peaceful and relaxing. Gosh, I just love it there. Well, I just love the seaside. But, Morecambe in particular.

For A level I am going to be studying, business studies, finance, economics and food technology.

I love food, and there isn't much I don't like, except I do not eat creme eggs, because they creep me out quite a lot, yet I am not sure why.

I love shopping, need I say more.

My middle name is Victoria, and it is after my Grandad's middle name, which was Victor.

I am a terrible dancer, yet I think I can drop some pretty good moves at discos, which would most probably mortify the people I am with.

I am quite a bubbly person, and I'm pretty sure my friends see me as a bit of a public embarrassment.

I am the world's biggest fidget, I cannot stay still, and when I have have to sit still for a prolonged amount of time I get really jittery. I'm sure people get really annoyed because of it.

I have really weird dreams. When I was younger I used to have night terrors, and often have nightmares, but now my dreams mainly consist of strange things. For example, a few weeks ago I dreamt about being a stunt pilot. I also occasionally sleep walk.

I like to think I am a rather nifty chopstick user, but I'm probably not any better than anyone else.

Thursday, 13 March 2014

I have another little makeup review for you guys today, and I know I only did one a couple of days ago, but I simply couldn't wait to review this product also.

I wasn't sure at first about how matte would look on. I thought that it would make my lips look dry and chapped, and perhaps not look too good, but boy was a wrong.

I actually like not having a shine in my lips occasionally, thus this matte balm is perfect. Also, I love the colour I bought as well. I would've bought them all, but I am trying to save my money a bit better at the moment, so I decided to go for the colour Elusive, which is a lovely red toned pink.

It was £7.99 and for the quality I definitely think that it was worth the money. The colour lasts for a good 4 hours before it needs reapplying, and the formula isn't drying at all. I love it, and will certainly be buying more of these.

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Today I am going to be doing a little makeup review, as I haven't done one in ages and I know that quite a few of you guys enjoy these.

The Glow All Out is a luminiser/highlighter, which is great for giving your cheeks a lovely natural glow and brightness. I have been using this product on the tops of my cheekbones to brighten up my face, and I love it so much.

It's a little bit pricey at £11 but it is definitely worth the money, because the quality is so good and the lasting power is awesome. I would highly recommend this product to anyone who is looking for a nice natural highlighter.

Paired with my Bourjois bronzer this highlighter is definitely worth it, and I love it so much. It gives me a lovely glow, and makes me look less ghostly than I already do.

Saturday, 8 March 2014

Something many of you will not know about me is that I am glasses and contact lens wearing. I've had to wear glasses all of the time since the age of four when they first discovered I had pretty bad astigmatism (meaning my eyeball wasn't the correct shape and everything was blurry). When I was younger my eyes were pretty bad, I had hospital check ups regularly, and had to be eye patched for a while because I had a terribly lazy eye.

I'm glad my opticians were so great back then though, because otherwise my eyes would be awful. Not to mention the amount of stick I'd get for having a lazy eye, and squint (slightly off centre eye).

Today's post is really about my experience with glasses and why I am confident wearing them, and also I will be throwing some make-up tips for glasses wearers in to the mix as well.

Firstly, it is important that if you are told by your optician that you need to wear glasses, please do. I'm sure that wearing glasses for the first time in your life is quite daunting, because it will make you look different, but being able to see is important.

My glasses are by Osiris which are obviously designer, but luckily for me I get a lovely NHS voucher for money off because I am still in full time education. I'm sure when I do not qualify for this voucher I'd probably still pay for the nicer pairs, purely because I still want to look nice wearing my glasses.

I also wear contact lenses but because they cannot make my contacts to match my perscription, thus I only really wear them for hockey and special occasions. But, I am perfectly fine wearing glasses the majority of the time, purely because I've worn them for most of my life.

For make-up with my glasses on, I like to stick to something simple on the eyes and something a little bit brighter on my lips. I tend to wear nude eyeshadow, with some mascara and a thin line of eyeliner on my eyes with a nice fuchsia pink lip, so my eyes don't look too loud.

Thursday, 6 March 2014

Firstly, I want to apologise for this post being fairly late, as we are now 6 days into March, but I had so many posts scheduled for my blog, that I thought it would be simply easier to leave this post until a bit later. Also, I haven't done any tag posts in a while, so I was wondering if there is any tag that you would like me to do on my blog, as when flicking through my blogging diary, I realised that I haven't done many and I thought that it would be nice for me to do some more "Get to know me" things, as I haven't in a while. Also, I would like to thank Emily from Totally Emmie for nominating me for another liebster award, I have decided though, that I'm not going to partake this time as I have already been nominated on two other occasions. Anyway, I digress, so let me jump back into my February favourites.

Beauty

First on my list of beauty favourites of course is a makeup product, and it is in fact something that I have only just bought earlier this month. The product I am loving is Soap&Glory's Glow all out highlighter, which is absolutely beautiful and gives my face a natural glow. I will do a full review on it next Tuesday though. My next beauty favourite is Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy perfume, because it smells so yummy and tropical, and it makes me feel less like I'm in rainy Britain whilst wearing it. My final beauty favourite is Nivea's Regenerating Night Cream, as I keep getting dry patches along the bridge of my nose and on my cupids bow at the moment and it seems to be working a treat on it. Also, I may have burnt my face with a curling rod a couple of weeks back, so that left a bit of a dry patch too, oops.

Fashion

Hmm... Fashion favourites always seem like the hardest ones to choose for me, but I think I am most probably going to go for my white converse, as they are so versatile and comfy. But, also my Leather jacket from New Look because it's not as big as a winter coat, yet it has lots of fur inside, thus it keeps me nice and warm.

Lifestyle

My two highlights of February definitely have to be, bowling with my friends, which was such a lovely day out and we all had a very good laugh. But, I also really enjoyed my Hockey's quiz night last Friday, because my family don't often get the opportunity to go out as a family, yet we all had a very good laugh, even though we didn't win.

Food

Ohmigosh! Have any of you tried the Cocoa Belvita biscuits? If not, why not? These things are so yummy, they're not dry, and are substantial enough to replace a meal, which I think is great if you are in a hurry. Anyway, they taste better than any chocolate biscuit I have ever eaten, and deserve very much for you all to go out and hunt them down as soon as you have finished reading this post.

Music

My music favourite is easy, it's Selfies by Nina Nesbitt. I heard about this singer/songwriter after she covered Company's March edition of the magazine. I love this song so much because I take a lot of Selfies, but it talks about how something that was meant to be taken for fun has now become quite serious, because we have become quite vain. In fact, every time I listen song I want to take a fun selfie, not a vain posing selfie.

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Well, this is my penultimate Wisdom Wednesday post, could you believe, and today's idea took a while to think about, but then it suddenly came to me. Today's Wisdom Wednesday post is going to be about fear, which is quite a broad topic I believe.

We all have fears, some to more severity than others. Some can be pretty disabling to people, but in other cases they can just be small worries. But, what they all have in common is that they are just stories we are telling ourselves that create the fear. In most cases fear can be quite irrational and we cannot help them being there no matter how often we tell ourselves that the fear is stupid, but there are some things we can do to help stop them from becoming a bigger problem.

Firstly, stop letting the fear stop you from doing things. You are only creating the situation in your head, it hasn't actually happened yet.

Sometimes exposure to your fear is the only way you can make it less bothersome. Avoidance is clearly going to cause more problems in the long run. Now, this post is definitely not for someone that has a severe phobia because I am definitely no professional, I am just a 16 year old, British school girl. But, if you have a minor fear, it is important not to let it take over you. Stop doing things "Just in case" and stop thinking "what if" because you are only listening to the stories you are telling yourself. You are making situations in your mind that may not necessarily be true. Live you life and don't let your imagination take control.

Tuesday, 4 March 2014

The time has come for another blogger challenge post, and all I can say is, well done Gaby for still managing to think of great topics for all of us to write about.

Today's topic is NOTD (or if you are not to great at all of this acronym malarkey, nails of the day). I have done posts like this before, but I guess this is good excuse to do it again. A quick disclaimer is that my dad is watching Grease downstairs at the moment, so I do apologise if my post seems a little distracted at points, but it's a very good musical.

Anyway, the nails...

On my nails at the moment I am wearing Dragon fruit by Barry M. It is part of their Gelly Hi Shine collection, therefore it has a very glossy finish. *Why, it's Grease Lightening!* I love this collection because they also last longer without chipping, which is always a plus considering I cannot bear chipped nails.

One downside about this nail polish is that they do take a little bit longer to dry, which can at times, be a bit of an annoyance, especially as I don't often have the time to be waiting around for my nails to dry.

The colour of Dragon fruit is a lovely pastel pink, and I would definitely say it is on the darker scale of pastel pink, which I really like because some pastel pinks look a little bit nothing'y'.

I hope you enjoyed todays #2014bloggerchallenge, because I certainly did.

Saturday, 1 March 2014

Can you believe it's the first day of spring? I love spring, I love the blossom on the trees, the pastel colours and the sunshine. Although, in Britain the weather is slightly unpredictable, for example, last year it was still snowing in April. Crazy right?

Anyway, back to the point, I am doing another Embakes post today, and this one was another little experiment.

Ingredients

250g Nutella

200g bar of dark chocolate

280g soft brown sugar

3 medium eggs

100g self-raising flour

Bar of galaxy

Method

Set aside 50g each of the nutella and chocolate. Heat the oven to 180'c and line a 20cm square baking tin with baking parchment. Gently melt the remaining nutella, chocolate and all the sugar in a pan, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has just about melted. Turn off the heat and use a wooden spoon to beat in the eggs one by one. Stir in the flour and scrape the tin. Then stir in the cubes of galaxy once cooled

Melt the reserved nutella in the microwave on High for 45 seconds, then drizzle over the brownie. Then bake for 30-35 minutes until it has a crust, but the middle still seems slightly uncooked.